James Lockhart, a UCLA emeritus professor who was regarded as one of the most original, accomplished scholars in the field of early Latin American history, died Jan. 17 in Bakersfield surrounded by his family.
Born in West Virginia, Lockhart attended West Virginia University in Morgantown. He enrolled in the Army Language Institute and worked as a translator in postwar Europe, mainly in Germany. His gift for learning languages led him to consider graduate studies in comparative literature, but he decided to pursue a degree in history instead at the University of Wisconsin, where he wrote his dissertation on Spanish Peru. This became the basis of his first book, a classic study of Peruvian society in the 16th century.
After receiving his Ph.D., Lockhart taught at Colgate University and the University of Texas before he settled down in the history department at UCLA in 1972. After writing two groundbreaking books on Peru, he shifted his attention to Mexico and published a collection of letters from 16th-century Spanish America with Enrique Otte. He also authored a state-of-the-field textbook, “Early Latin America,” with Stuart Schwartz.
Lockhart went on to pioneer the translation and analysis of archival Nahuatl-language texts from central Mexico, collaborating with several scholars from diverse disciplines. He subsequently became one of the world's leading experts on the Nahuatl language, as it was written in the Roman alphabet from the mid-16th to the early-19th centuries. He edited a Nahuatl book series published by the UCLA Latin American Center and published several more books on the topic with Stanford University Press. But it was his magnum opus, “The Nahuas After the Conquest” (1992), that won multiple book prizes from the American Historical Association.
He mentored dozens of graduate students before he retired from UCLA early in his career, in 1995. He later moved from Santa Monica to Pine Mountain, Calif., where he continued to publish several books, co-chair dissertation committees, help others publish books and work with scholars and students around the world. He was active until the last few weeks of his life.
He was an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2012 he received the XIV Banamex Prize for Mexican History in Mexico City.
An avid hiker and sports fan, he enjoyed Renaissance music and played the lute, vihuela, mandolin, recorder and classical guitar for family and friends. Skilled in woodworking, he crafted his own musical instruments as well as furniture.
“Most of all, he loved to teach students who were eager to learn,” said UCLA historian Kevin Terraciano, with whom Lockhart studied. “His genuine enthusiasm for knowledge and generosity was contagious. He will be missed, to say the least, but he and his brilliant work will never be forgotten.”
A memorial gathering and conference in his honor is being planning. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club, Box 3357, Bakersfield, CA 93385-3357